Consolidated canon and development reference — October 2026
A world of necromantic nomads, fallen Melnibonean empires, prehistoric monsters, living spellbooks, decadent sorcerers, and dead gods.
Purpose of this document: This is a self-contained reference for continuing development of one Sphere within the larger Million Spheres project. It is intended to be copied into new conversations with ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Arena.ai, or other AI collaborators.
Established facts are distinguished from unresolved mysteries and proposed additions. Do not treat suggestions as canon without the creator's approval.
Melnibonean dragon riders came to this Sphere and conquered its human kingdoms. A century into the conquest, a powerful sorceress-queen arose, beginning a dynasty of eight queens who would rule for approximately two thousand years. The last queen foresaw the end of all things and led her people into another Sphere.
Human civilization recovered in their absence.
Then came the Ur-Mabden.
Over three centuries, eight clans of nomadic warriors and necromantic sorcerers conquered rival nomads, annihilated the surviving human kingdoms, and burned the abandoned Melnibonean cities.
Today, the world contains:
One dominant human civilization: the eight clans of the Ur-Mabden Horde.
One principal refuge of surviving non-Ur-Mabden humans: primitive populations hidden in the equatorial jungles.
Half-human civilizations and remnants: most notably the Mule Lords of Mél-An-Kora, descendants of humans and Melniboneans.
Everything else: vast prehistoric ecosystems, monstrous ruins, ancient horrors, dead gods, and enormous beasts.
The Ur-Mabden control the great interior of the main continent. They do not control every jungle, mountain, canyon, coast, island, or forgotten place.
Much of the Sphere belongs to creatures that consider human beings food.
Its prevailing philosophy might be expressed simply:
Everything likes the taste of man's flesh and the sound of his screams.
This is a statement of the setting's atmosphere, not a literal rule governing every animal or intelligent creature.
The Sphere is inspired by dark sword-and-sorcery, prehistoric adventure, grotesque fantasy, and the decadent cruelty associated with Melnibone.
Its defining qualities are ancient civilizations, terrible magic, physical danger, morally compromised societies, and vast territories beyond human control.
This is not conventional high fantasy. There are no assumed friendly kingdoms, bustling international trade networks, benevolent wizard academies, or safe roads between civilized cities.
There can be humor, beauty, affection, craftsmanship, loyalty, and ordinary domestic life. These qualities exist within a world that is frequently appalling.
Approximately 2,600 years before the present, Melnibonean dragon riders arrived upon the Sphere.
They possessed dragons, powerful sorcery, sophisticated magical engineering, and the ability to create or modify living creatures.
Within approximately a century, they had subjugated the existing human kingdoms.
Their rule was maintained by overwhelming magical and military superiority. Dragons could devastate cities and armies, while engineered creatures performed tasks unsuitable for dragons or conventional troops.
One such creation was the Teraton, a monstrous subterranean laborer and siege creature.
A century into the conquest, the powerful sorceress Vaelthyrra arose, beginning the dynasty of eight Melnibonean queens.
The Melniboneans established their imperial center at Mél-An-Kora, the Singing Mountain.
During the early centuries of Melnibonean rule, roughly a century after the conquest was completed, a family of human slaves possessing hereditary psionic gifts escaped Mél-An-Kora.
They had no homeland to return to and no friendly kingdom prepared to receive them.
They became nomads because they had nowhere else to go.
Their descendants eventually became part of the lineage of the Dire Wolf clan.
Their hereditary telepathy survived across generations, eventually becoming the foundation of a secret political power within Ur-Mabden civilization.
Eight successive sorceress-queens ruled the Melnibonean empire. Each was the eldest daughter of her predecessor.
Their empire became increasingly decadent.
Conquest and political domination gradually gave way to cultivated pleasures, elaborate dreams, lotus-drugged indulgence, and artistic experimentation with magic and sensation.
Human kingdoms remained subordinate. Their masters demanded tribute, including gold, wine, and slaves.
Human rebellions were crushed when necessary. Wars between human kingdoms could be tolerated, but not when they threatened imperial tribute.
The Melniboneans were capable of extraordinary brutality, yet their growing boredom and indifference were as important to their imperial character as their military strength.
Succession
Queen
Title
1
Vaelthyrra
The Queen of Screams
2
Yssarael
The First Song-Seer
3
Shaelithra
She Who Sang to Dragons
4
Vhaelyss
The Nightmare Cantor
5
Thyrmelys
The Mother of Lamentations
6
Xyrathiel
The Empress of the Last Cry
7
Maelthyra
The Dream-Singer
8
Yrvaelith
The Voice Beneath the Mountain
Vaelthyrra was born during the early period of Melnibonean conquest and rose to power approximately a century into that conquest.
The enormous sculpture forming Mél-An-Kora's principal entrance depicts her screaming.
The final queen, Yrvaelith, ruled for one hundred years.
She foresaw the end of all things.
Rather than remain to face the approaching catastrophe, she led the true Melniboneans away from the Sphere.
Approximately six hundred years before the present, Yrvaelith led the Melniboneans into another Sphere.
The true dragon riders departed.
The exact nature of the catastrophe she foresaw remains unknown. Whether her prophecy concerned the entire Sphere, the empire, a distant future, or something else is deliberately unresolved.
The destination of the Exodus is also a separate setting question.
The Ur-Mabden did not defeat the original Melnibonean dragon riders. Their conquests occurred centuries after the Exodus.
For approximately three hundred years after the Exodus, surviving human societies recovered.
Kingdoms rose, prospered, fought wars, and sometimes fell.
The former Melnibonean empire fragmented.
Mél-An-Kora remained occupied by the Mule Lords, descendants of mixed Melnibonean and human ancestry.
The dragon riders did not return.
Approximately three hundred years before the present, the Ur-Mabden began their great expansion.
Their conquest occurred in three broad phases.
First century — Conquest of the nomads. The emerging Horde defeated or absorbed rival nomadic peoples. Strategic marriages and selective breeding concentrated valuable bloodlines: exceptional horse breeders, riders, archers, bowyers, fletchers, military tacticians, and other specialists.
Second century — Destruction of the human kingdoms. The Horde turned upon the settled civilizations, destroying their armies, cities, and political institutions. Most surviving populations were exterminated. Some fled into the equatorial jungles.
Third century — Burning of the Melnibonean cities. The Ur-Mabden systematically destroyed the remaining abandoned cities of the former Melnibonean empire.
By the present, the Horde has become the only surviving dominant human civilization.
Its wars of conquest have evolved into a recurring seasonal campaign against ruins, undead, monsters, and the rare human settlements that reappear.
The setting uses a provisional calendar measured from the Exodus.
Date
Event
c. 2000 years before Exodus
Melnibonean arrival and beginning of conquest
c. 1900 years before Exodus
Human kingdoms largely subjugated; Vaelthyrra rises
c. 1800 years before Exodus
Psionically gifted human slaves escape Mél-An-Kora
0 AE
Yrvaelith leads the Exodus
0–300 AE
Human kingdoms recover and compete
300–400 AE
Ur-Mabden conquer rival nomads
400–500 AE
Ur-Mabden destroy human kingdoms
500–600 AE
Ur-Mabden burn abandoned Melnibonean cities
c. 600 AE
Present day
These dates are approximate. The individual reign lengths of the first seven queens have not been established.
The Sphere's principal continent contains an enormous central plain, with the Necropolis at its heart.
Surrounding this center are immense savannahs, steppes, and tundra, supporting vast migrations of prehistoric herbivores and the predators that follow them.
Beyond the open country lie badlands, tremendous river canyons, ancient forests, hills, and mountain ranges approaching storm-lashed coasts.
The regions are irregular and interconnected rather than perfect concentric bands.
The great interior is suited to nomadic horsemen, mammoths, mastodons, and large mobile armies.
The continent's margins are considerably more difficult to conquer.
The Necropolis stands in the heart of the continent.
It is the sole permanent city of the Ur-Mabden and the fixed center of their civilization.
The surrounding plains accommodate the great movements of the Horde, its animals, and its enormous funerary processions.
These are the principal lands of the Ur-Mabden.
Immense herds of herbivores support thriving populations of predators and scavengers.
Nomadic camps and migratory routes shift with the seasons.
The colder regions support mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, northern predators, and the northern Ur-Mabden clans.
Winters are severe. Weather itself becomes a weapon in the hands of Mammoth clan sorcerers.
Enormous canyons and difficult broken terrain interrupt the open country.
These regions are formidable natural barriers to mass cavalry movement.
Ruins and isolated territories may survive in places that the Horde finds difficult to reach.
The great forests are particularly dangerous because they favor ambush predators and limit the effectiveness of mounted armies.
Saber-toothed cats are especially important in forest ecosystems.
The continent's coasts are mountainous and bordered by unusually stormy seas.
Travel between the main continent and outlying landmasses is difficult and hazardous.
The jungles shelter the last significant populations of humans outside the Ur-Mabden.
Their density and terrain prevent the Horde from easily employing its greatest strengths.
Deep within the jungles rise enormous sheer-sided tepuis, isolated table mountains inhabited by creatures unknown to the human populations below.
Smaller continents and islands lie beyond the stormy seas.
These are lands of dead gods, gigantic beasts, and ancient monstrosities.
They are not presumed to contain ordinary human kingdoms or conventional civilizations.
Their exact geography and contents remain largely unexplored.
The Ur-Mabden are a single human civilization composed of eight great nomadic clans.
They are disciplined, ruthless, militarily sophisticated, and deeply invested in inherited martial and magical traditions.
Their civilization is not simply a wandering army.
It contains families, children, elders, animal breeders, artisans, tattooists, hunters, warriors, and sorcerers.
They are capable of ordinary domestic life, intense personal loyalties, sophisticated craftsmanship, and terrible cruelty.
Ur-Mabden magic is recorded in tattoos upon the bodies of sorcerers and their mounts, rather than in books.
This is a fundamental characteristic of their civilization, not a minor decorative custom.
The living bodies of sorcerers and their animals serve as repositories of magical knowledge, including spells, rituals, and pacts.
The sorcerer and mount are, in effect, living spellbooks.
Sorcerers perform magic through elaborate physical movements and martial-arts katas.
Thus the sorcerer's body is both the repository of magical knowledge and the instrument through which magic is performed.
The tattoos connect the Ur-Mabden's martial disciplines, animal husbandry, necromancy, and traditions of transmitting knowledge between generations.
Books are not their ordinary method of recording spells. The books preserved in the Necropolis are a special funerary institution described later.
Approximately 10% of each clan are actual sorcerers.
Magic is important throughout Ur-Mabden society, but the majority of its population cannot cast spells.
Sorcerers are therefore a significant minority within a much larger civilization of warriors, herders, breeders, craftsmen, hunters, and families.
Each clan is associated with a great prehistoric animal and possesses its own magical specialties.
The clans are neither separate species nor completely isolated bloodlines.
Marriage and clan transfers continually redistribute ancestry, talents, and skills.
Four clans tend to be female-dominated or female-leaning:
Mammoth
Mastodon
Saber-Toothed Cat
Dire Wolf
The other four tend to be male-dominated or male-leaning:
Terror Bird
Short-Faced Bear
Hyaenodon
Hell Pig
These are tendencies, not universal restrictions on membership or magical talent.
All eight clans possess access to the following GURPS Magic colleges:
Enchantment
Fire
Making and Breaking
Necromancy
They may also learn spells from other colleges when required as prerequisites for their established magical traditions.
No Ur-Mabden clan possesses Mind Control or Gate magic.
Rare hereditary psionic telepathy is distinct from spellcasting.
Clan
Additional colleges
Character
Terror Bird
Air, Sound
Wind and sonic sorcery
Saber-Toothed Cat
Body Control, Movement
Swift and lethal martial sorcery
Dire Wolf
Communication and Empathy
Coordination, communication, and hereditary psionic bloodlines
Mastodon
Animal, Water
Beast-related and water magic
Short-Faced Bear
Healing, Body Control
Endurance, healing, and physical mastery
Mammoth
Animal, Weather, selected cold-related Water spells
Great beasts, blizzards, and cold
Hyaenodon
Protection and Warning, Body Control
Defensive and bodily martial sorcery
Hell Pig / Daeodon
Food, Earth
Food magic, earth, and mud
The Saber-Toothed Cat, Short-Faced Bear, and Hyaenodon clans are especially associated with Body Control martial disciplines.
All eight clans nevertheless use physical katas in spellcasting.
One established example is the Saber-Toothed Cat tradition called the Style of the Bleeding Claw.
The Dire Wolf clan's psionic telepathy is not an additional GURPS Magic college.
Most Ur-Mabden ride large horses descended from Pliohippus.
These animals are the result of approximately one thousand years of selective breeding.
They are large, formidable riding horses, but not absurdly mammoth-sized.
The quality of horse bloodlines is of considerable cultural importance.
The northern Mammoth clan rides mammoths, including beasts bearing rune-carved tusks.
The Mastodon clan can employ armored mastodons.
The Dire Wolf clan also possesses traditions of riding dire wolves.
The Ur-Mabden's exceptional breeding traditions extend beyond size and strength to temperament, endurance, riding ability, and military usefulness.
Sorcerers' mounts are particularly significant because they can carry tattooed magical knowledge.
Marriage is one of the principal mechanisms by which the Horde reorganizes itself.
The husband joins the wife's clan.
Consequently, marriages transfer people, bloodlines, expertise, and potential magical aptitude between clans.
Marriage arrangements may carry military, political, or breeding significance.
Clans are enduring institutions, but their populations are not biologically sealed off from one another.
The Ur-Mabden follow a repeating annual cycle.
The entire Horde rides together during its principal campaigns and ceremonial gatherings, then separates into its constituent clans for winter.
The eight clans separate and withdraw to their wintering grounds.
Each clan attends to its animals, families, equipment, training, and internal affairs.
Winter is the principal season of separate clan life.
The clans reunite.
Spring is the season of competitions, judgments, punishment of crimes, marriage arrangements, and changes of clan membership.
Martial skill, horsemanship, breeding expertise, magical ability, and personal reputation can all matter.
The Horde settles disputes and reorganizes itself before the summer campaign.
This is a recurring institution of the civilization, not merely a military muster.
The reunited Horde rides into a different region of the main continent each year.
Its targets are the ruins of destroyed human kingdoms and abandoned Melnibonean cities.
The Horde fights undead, monstrous inhabitants of the ruins, and the rare surviving human settlements that have appeared since the last passage.
These campaigns are both genuine warfare and a continuation of the Ur-Mabden's centuries-long program of destruction.
The Horde's campaign route takes approximately ten years to complete a circuit of the world it patrols.
This does not require literal circumnavigation of the planet. It is a recurring great circuit through the accessible regions of the main continent.
In autumn, the Horde returns to the Necropolis.
The preserved dead accompany the living.
Warriors who died during the year, together with their ritually prepared mounts, join the long procession toward the city.
The dead are delivered to the Necropolis, where the Liche-Librarians perform their rites and preserve the magical knowledge of deceased sorcerers.
The annual return gives the entire civilization a permanent geographical and spiritual center.
The Horde may wander across the continent, but its dead return to one place.
Ur-Mabden warriors are preserved with resin after death.
Their horses are ritually killed and taxidermied.
Necromancy animates the preserved warriors and mounts, allowing them to accompany the living during the autumn procession.
These mounted dead silently follow the migrating funerary train.
They are not merely discarded bodies. They are part of the civilization's ancestral and funerary traditions.
Whether they routinely fight in battle remains undecided.
The Necropolis is the Ur-Mabden's only permanent city.
It stands in the central plain of the main continent.
It is not a ninth clan.
It is a sacred, political, funerary, and magical institution serving all eight clans.
The Necropolis receives the dead, preserves sorcerous knowledge, and maintains the continuity of the Horde's necromantic traditions.
The Liche-Librarians are necromancers responsible for preserving the magical knowledge of the dead.
The Ur-Mabden do not ordinarily record magic in books. Their living sorcerers and mounts carry magical knowledge tattooed upon their bodies.
Upon a sorcerer's death, the Liche-Librarians recover this knowledge by removing the tattooed skin and binding it into a Skin-Grimoire, using a horsehide cover.
The Skin-Grimoires are therefore funerary archives of knowledge originally carried by living sorcerers.
They are not the ordinary means by which the Ur-Mabden record and practice magic.
Master tattooists and living practitioners transmit magical knowledge to succeeding generations.
The Necropolis recruits exceptional necromancers from all eight clans.
Admission is genuinely based on talent rather than exclusive clan membership.
Unknown to the wider Horde, the highest authority within the Necropolis belongs exclusively to descendants of the original psionically gifted escaped slaves of Mél-An-Kora.
These bloodlines originated in the ancestry of the Dire Wolf clan.
Their hereditary telepathy allows them to coordinate secretly.
The arrangement permits a small network of related families to exercise concealed influence over the Necropolis and, through it, the Horde.
Most Ur-Mabden, including most Liche-Librarians, do not know the truth.
The precise form of this secret government remains undefined.
The Ur-Mabden admire the enormous predators of their world.
They do not regard these animals as monsters that must automatically be exterminated.
Predators are dangerous, powerful, and worthy of respect.
Their presence has helped shape Ur-Mabden martial culture.
An Ur-Mabden saying expresses the value of collective strength:
One man feeds the birds. Ten men frighten the birds. A hundred men eat the birds.
Criminals, captives, disgraced warriors, exiles, and condemned persons may be exposed to great predators as a form of judgment.
Survival is the decisive outcome.
A condemned person who survives by any means may be forgiven, freed, reinstated, or regarded as favored by the Dark Powers.
The khans are obligated to honor the judgment.
The accused need not kill the predator.
They might escape, hide, fight, outlast the danger, or simply encounter an animal that is not hungry.
This makes the judgment unpredictable rather than a guaranteed execution.
The Ur-Mabden's respect for predators does not imply kindness toward their human enemies.
Mél-An-Kora is one of the greatest surviving works of Melnibonean sorcery and engineering.
It is an immense hollow mountain whose exterior was carved and modified for defense.
There are no ground-level entrances whatsoever.
The lowest elevated gate stands approximately one thousand feet above the surrounding plains.
That gate is shaped as the open mouth of an enormous sculpture of Vaelthyrra, the Queen of Screams.
Access to the mountain is possible by flight or through dangerous subterranean tunnels inhabited by Teratons.
The mountain has no ordinary ground-level gates.
The mountain's extraordinary acoustic system was created by the Melnibonean song-mage:
Vhalzareth, Architect of a Million Lullabies and Ten Thousand Screams.
He hollowed and transformed the mountain into an immense wind-driven musical instrument.
Its chambers, pipes, passages, vents, windows, doors, and shutters alter the movement of air.
Opening and closing parts of the structure changes the sounds it produces.
Under favorable winds, the mountain sings beautiful, soothing, sometimes euphoric music.
During violent storms, it may produce horrific and deafening screams.
Its song can be heard miles away.
The Melniboneans cultivated dreams as an elaborate form of art, pleasure, and escapism.
Curated dreams became a defining luxury of their decadent civilization.
Mél-An-Kora's acoustics were intimately connected with these experiences.
Its music could influence consciousness, emotion, and perception.
Dream composers and other practitioners developed elaborate experiences for their masters.
The exact extent of the mountain's dream-producing capabilities remains undefined.
The use of lotus drugs and other enhancements is consistent with the setting's established decadence, but their specific mechanisms have not been established.
The Mule Lords are descendants of Melnibonean and human ancestry.
They possess recognizable signs of their mixed heritage, including pointed ears and amber eyes.
They inhabit Mél-An-Kora as decadent aristocrats, clinging to the remnants of a civilization whose true rulers abandoned them centuries ago.
They are cruel, lotus-drugged, and terrified of the possibility that the pure Melniboneans might return.
They believe their former masters could regard them as impure squatters and exterminate them.
The Mule Lords understand only fragments of the mountain's original workings.
A few retain the tradition of spell-singing, allowing them to manipulate its acoustics and associated magic.
Mind Control magic survives within their spell-singing tradition.
Their precise population, internal politics, and means of supplying the mountain have not yet been determined.
Teratons are engineered hybrids incorporating human, star-nosed mole, and cave bear characteristics.
They were created by the Melniboneans as subterranean laborers and siege creatures.
Their enormous claws allow them to tunnel through earth and stone, including beneath enemy fortifications.
They could attack or undermine targets unsuitable for dragons.
Teratons are blind or nearly blind, relying heavily on extraordinary tactile, vibration, and other senses.
Outside Mél-An-Kora, Teratons are predominantly solitary.
Mothers remain with their pups, but adults do not ordinarily form large communities.
They are dangerous, powerful animals, not mindlessly aggressive monsters.
They generally avoid unnecessary combat unless threatened or cornered.
Their subterranean territories make long-term underground settlements difficult for other species.
Mél-An-Kora's music has a calming and mildly euphoric effect on Teratons.
It also interferes with or overwhelms some of their sensory awareness.
This allows the Mule Lords to maintain greater control over Teratons within the mountain.
The acoustic influence extends several miles beyond the structure, attracting some wild Teratons toward its pleasant sounds.
Outside that influence, Teratons return to their normal solitary behavior.
The mountain's sound also affects other species.
Whether the Teratons' special susceptibility was deliberately engineered remains an open question.
The surviving human populations outside the Ur-Mabden are concentrated in the deep equatorial jungles.
They are remnants of peoples whose kingdoms were destroyed during the Horde's conquests.
They are comparatively primitive in material culture, but not helpless.
Their knowledge of jungle terrain, stealth, and guerrilla warfare makes them formidable opponents in their own environment.
The great forests prevent the Ur-Mabden from easily deploying massed cavalry or the full strength of their Horde.
Some jungle humans live alongside giant saber-toothed cats.
Their relationship may involve an unusual empathic or psionic connection, inspired by the bond between humans and great cats in the Horseclans novels.
This is not necessarily domestication or absolute control.
Emotions, images, instincts, and mutual understanding are more appropriate than direct verbal conversation.
The precise nature and origin of the bond remain unresolved.
Some jungle survivors possess scavenged relics of Melnibonean technology known as God-Iron.
Among these are plasma-sheathed rods capable of projecting devastating destructive energy.
These rare weapons are carried or otherwise employed in ways suited to the dense jungle.
Their users do not necessarily understand the original technology.
Such relics are rare and do not imply that the jungle humans possess an advanced industrial civilization.
Deep within the equatorial jungle stand enormous isolated tepuis, sheer-sided table mountains with immense waterfalls descending into the forests below.
Atop some of these heights dwell giant ape-like humanoids known out of game as the Viet Kong.
They are inspired by the great apes of Tarzan's Bolgani traditions.
Their society is organized around dominant males, challenges for leadership, mating, and family groups.
They are strongly territorial.
They are largely herbivorous but also eat giant insects, snakes, and other creatures, including enormous centipedes.
They may be peaceful when undisturbed but react violently to intruders.
An unwelcome visitor might be casually hurled from a cliff while an ape continues chewing its meal.
The apes beat their chests and roar.
Their cries echo for miles through the jungle valleys.
Occasionally, entire trees are thrown over the cliffs.
The human populations below do not know what causes these events.
They have not discovered the ape settlements or understood the society living above them.
The Ur-Mabden are far from these deep jungle regions and do not know the Viet Kong exist.
The Viet Kong are presently a GM-only secret.
Their exact height and full range of behavior remain undefined.
The Sphere supports exceptionally healthy populations of prehistoric megafauna.
With most settled human populations destroyed, large herbivore herds have expanded across enormous territories.
Predators and scavengers thrive alongside them.
The world is not ecologically empty merely because human civilization has collapsed.
Examples include:
Wild Pliohippus and other horses
Bison and giant deer
Mammoths and mastodons
Woolly rhinoceroses
Ground sloths
Tapirs and peccaries
Numerous other large grazing and browsing animals
Different animals occupy appropriate climatic and ecological regions.
Giant flightless predatory birds are particularly associated with open country.
Working game-world examples include:
Species
Approximate height
Approximate weight
Kelenken
10 feet
220 pounds
Titanis
8 feet
580 pounds
Phorusrhacos
10 feet
590 pounds
These are setting-specific working figures, not necessarily exact paleontological reconstructions.
Large saber-toothed cats are especially associated with forest environments.
Possible regional examples include:
Environment
Candidate
Taiga
Homotherium
Temperate forest
Smilodon fatalis
Subtropical forest
Megantereon
Tropical forest
Smilodon populator
This distribution is provisional.
The Sphere also contains dire wolves, short-faced bears, Hyaenodon, Daeodon or hell pigs, and numerous other formidable predators.
These animals are not automatically evil or unnaturally aggressive.
They have territories, appetites, reproductive behaviors, and ecological relationships.
Their existence makes wilderness travel dangerous even without supernatural monsters.
The main continent contains the remains of destroyed human kingdoms and abandoned Melnibonean cities.
Many are now occupied by undead and hideous creatures.
The intended atmosphere is partly inspired by the grotesque horrors of Fantasy II: Mad Lands.
The exact creatures and their game statistics have not yet been established.
The ruins may contain malformed beings, ancient experiments, undead, monstrous descendants of forgotten populations, and horrors whose origins are unknown.
Not every creature must be a Melnibonean creation.
Some things may have been present long before the dragon riders arrived.
Others may have emerged only after the cities were abandoned or destroyed.
The Ur-Mabden revisit ruined regions on an approximately ten-year cycle.
Each visit may involve exterminating monsters, destroying undead, burning newly occupied structures, and hunting down the rare human survivors who have reestablished themselves.
The Horde does not necessarily eradicate every threat permanently.
A decade is long enough for something new to occupy the ruins.
Thus the campaigns remain dangerous and meaningful rather than merely ceremonial.
The Ur-Mabden have made the destruction of civilization into a recurring seasonal institution.
Several distinct supernatural traditions exist upon the Sphere.
They should not be automatically treated as interchangeable.
Magic is recorded in tattoos on sorcerers and their mounts instead of books.
These tattoos preserve spells, magical knowledge, rituals, and pacts.
Sorcery is performed through elaborate martial-arts katas.
The living body is both a magical archive and an instrument of spellcasting.
Ur-Mabden magical knowledge is organized according to GURPS Magic colleges.
Common colleges and clan specialties are explicitly defined in Part IV.
The Skin-Grimoires preserved in the Necropolis are funerary records made from deceased sorcerers' tattooed skins.
Rare human telepathy descends from the escaped slaves of Mél-An-Kora.
It is particularly associated with the secret Dire Wolf bloodlines.
It is not a GURPS Mind Control spell.
Its exact range and limitations remain undecided.
The ancient dragon riders possessed powerful magic, including song sorcery, dream manipulation, biological engineering, and other advanced arts.
Their capabilities exceeded what the surviving Mule Lords fully understand.
Rare Mule Lord spell-singers manipulate Mél-An-Kora's acoustics and associated magic.
Mind Control magic survives within this tradition.
The Ur-Mabden do not possess Mind Control magic.
Ancient Melnibonean devices may survive as apparently miraculous weapons or mechanisms.
They are not evidence of a functioning modern technological society.
The outlying landmasses contain dead gods and ancient horrors.
Their nature, powers, and relationship to the established magical systems remain unknown.
The following distinctions should be preserved in future development.
1. Ur-Mabden magic is recorded in tattoos upon sorcerers and their mounts instead of books. The Ur-Mabden did not defeat the original Melnibonean dragon riders.
2. The Melniboneans ruled for approximately two thousand years and departed about six hundred years before the present.
3. The Dire Wolf ancestors became nomads because they escaped slavery without a homeland to return to.
4. There are eight Ur-Mabden clans, not nine. The Necropolis is a shared institution, not another clan.
5. Only about 10% of each clan are actual sorcerers.
6. Every clan has Enchantment, Fire, Making and Breaking, and Necromancy, plus its specified specialties and required prerequisites.
7. The Ur-Mabden do not know Mind Control or Gate magic.
8. Hereditary psionic telepathy is distinct from sorcery and is not universal among Dire Wolf members.
9. Husbands join their wives' clans upon marriage.
10. The Horde separates for winter, gathers in spring, campaigns in summer, and follows the Trail of the Dead to the Necropolis in autumn.
11. Its approximately ten-year circuit concerns its recurring campaign regions, not necessarily a literal circumnavigation of the planet.
12. The Necropolis stands at the center of the main continent's great plain.
13. The last significant non-Ur-Mabden human populations survive in the equatorial jungles. There are no assumed surviving independent human kingdoms.
14. The Mule Lords are mixed Melnibonean-human descendants occupying Mél-An-Kora.
15. Teratons are generally solitary outside the Singing Mountain and are calmed, not tortured, by its acoustic influence.
16. The Ur-Mabden do not know the Viet Kong exist. The jungle humans below the tepuis do not know what produces the roars or falling trees.
17. Prehistoric animals are part of a functioning ecology, not automatically supernatural or mindlessly murderous.
18. The precise nature of Yrvaelith's prophecy and the fate of the departed Melniboneans remain unresolved.
19. Mél-An-Kora has no ground-level entrances. Its lowest elevated gate stands approximately one thousand feet above the plain; subterranean tunnels provide a separate dangerous approach.
20. Mind Control magic survives among the Mule Lords' spell-singers.
21. Jungle humans possess rare God-Iron relics, including destructive plasma-sheathed rods, but do not employ wagons as their established means of using these weapons.
These questions are deliberately unanswered and should not be filled in as established fact.
The Prophecy: What did Yrvaelith actually foresee? Has the predicted end already occurred, or is it still approaching?
The Exodus: Why did the Melniboneans choose their destination? What became of them afterward?
The Singing Mountain: How much of Mél-An-Kora's original dream sorcery remains operational? Does the mountain contain knowledge or warnings that its present occupants cannot understand?
The Mule Lords: How many remain? How do they feed themselves? What rivalries, households, or institutions govern their existence?
The Secret Telepaths: What are the limitations of their hereditary gifts? How exactly do they exercise power within the Necropolis?
The Last Ride: Can the preserved dead serve as combatants, or is their animation principally funerary?
The Ruins: What are the most terrible things that have taken residence in the abandoned cities?
The Jungle Bond: Are the humans' relationships with saber-toothed cats genuinely psionic? If so, where did that ability originate?
The Outlying Lands: What does it mean for a god to be dead? What lives among their remains?
The Apocalypse: Is the Sphere already dying, or has its worst age not yet begun?
These are practical matters worth developing when required by adventures or campaign play.
Subject
Question
Horde government
Is there a supreme khan, a council of khans, or another system for coordinating the eight clans?
Spring gathering
How are competitions judged, crimes tried, and marriages negotiated?
Winter territories
How fixed are each clan's wintering grounds?
Sorcerer demographics
How are magical talents identified, trained, and inherited?
Tattoo magic
How are new tattoos inscribed, how do they interact with spellcasting, and what limitations govern the magical knowledge carried by mounts?
Necropolis
Who performs its ordinary labor and maintenance?
Telepathy
What are its range, reliability, and limitations?
Mél-An-Kora
What sustains the Mule Lords and how many spell-singers survive?
Ruins
Which ancient sites have distinctive recurring horrors?
Maps
What are the actual distances, major rivers, mountain passes, and campaign routes?
Campaign play
Are player characters Ur-Mabden, jungle survivors, Mule Lords, outsiders, or something stranger?
None of these requires an immediate answer to preserve the setting's coherence.
This document establishes the current canon of one Sphere within the larger Million Spheres project.
When evaluating or expanding it:
Preserve established facts. Do not casually introduce a ninth Ur-Mabden clan, additional Melnibonean queens, surviving friendly human kingdoms, or abilities explicitly excluded from existing magical traditions.
Preserve the tattoo tradition. Ur-Mabden sorcerers and their mounts carry magical knowledge upon their bodies. They do not ordinarily maintain spellbooks. The Skin-Grimoires are archives created from the dead, not substitutes for the living tattoo tradition.
Distinguish canon from invention. Any new culture, creature, spell, institution, historical event, or geographical feature should be clearly labeled as a proposal unless explicitly accepted by the setting's creator.
Respect chronology. The Melnibonean Exodus predates the Ur-Mabden conquests by centuries. The escaped psionic slaves predate the Exodus by roughly eighteen centuries.
Respect geography. The Ur-Mabden dominate the central continent's open country, not every remote jungle, mountain, canyon, or outlying landmass.
Respect the setting's ecology. Giant prehistoric animals are living species with recognizable behaviors, not disposable combat encounters.
Maintain the intended tone. The Sphere should feel ancient, hostile, decadent, monstrous, and strange. Ordinary human experiences still exist, but they take place under extraordinary threats.
Preserve useful mysteries. Not every unanswered question needs a definitive explanation. The world's unknown places and forgotten histories are essential to its appeal.
Critique constructively. Identify genuine contradictions, logistical problems, or opportunities for richer development. Do not assume that unfamiliar choices are mistakes merely because they depart from conventional fantasy.
Avoid sanitizing the setting. The Ur-Mabden commit atrocities, the Mule Lords are cruel and decadent, and the world is full of horrors. These are intentional fictional elements, not invitations to make every society secretly benevolent.
Do not confuse inspiration with canon. References to Moorcock, Tarzan, Horseclans, GURPS, or Fantasy II: Mad Lands communicate influences and mechanical foundations; they do not automatically import every element of those works.
For approximately two thousand years, Melnibonean dragon riders ruled a world of human kingdoms from their impossible Singing Mountain, until their final sorceress-queen foresaw the end of all things and led her people into another Sphere. Humanity recovered, only to be annihilated by the eight clans of the Ur-Mabden, a nomadic civilization of martial sorcerers whose spells are tattooed upon their bodies and mounts, prehistoric beasts, and necromantic ancestor worship. Now the Horde follows a seasonal cycle of marriage, judgment, warfare, and funerary pilgrimage, returning every autumn to its lone permanent city, the Necropolis, where the tattooed skins of dead sorcerers become grimoires. The last independent humans hide in equatorial jungles, decadent half-Melnibonean Mule Lords haunt the Singing Mountain, and the ruins of lost civilizations breed horrors that must be destroyed again and again. Beyond the plains lie ancient forests, immense canyons, storm-wracked seas, and smaller lands where dead gods and monstrous beasts hold dominion. The world is beautiful, enormous, and almost entirely hostile to mankind.
END OF SPHERE SETTING BIBLE — VERSION 2.1
There you go. Tattooed sorcerers and their tattooed mounts, the heart of the Ur-Mabden's magical culture.
A setting where the necromantic conquerors periodically exterminate the last remnants of civilization are arguably among the more predictable things you might encounter. 😂